Realtors Focusing on Insurance Problems

The politically influential NAR has been asked to put forth the "same energy" to protect homebuyers and owners from property insurers who use credit scores to deny coverage or jack up rates that it has used to keep banks out of real estate.Lynn King, director of legislative and regulatory affairs at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said her group is "very, very troubled at the increased use of scoring in the insurance field." She told the NAR convention that 92% of all carriers use scoring but won't reveal how ratings are calculated. However, Donald Griffin of the National Association of Independent Insurers defended the practice. He said actuaries believe scoring is now "the No. 1 predictor" of homeowner insurance losses. At the same time, though, he admitted that the industry hasn't done as good a job as it should in proving the correlation, and vowed to do better. Meanwhile, the NAR, concerned that property insurance has become increasingly difficult and more expensive to obtain, has created a task force to recommend what actions the 840,000-member group can take. "There is not a state where we don?t have insurance issues," said Jeanette Way of Gateway Realty, Vacaville, Calif.